New Bishop of Newcastle Announced

The Venerable Christine Elizabeth Hardman has been announced as the new Bishop of Newcastle.

Diocesan announcement ~ Wiki page ~ tributes from Southwark Diocese on her retirement as Archdeacon in November 2012 (pdf) ~ Thinking Anglicans ~

The press release says:

No 10 Downing Street has announced this morning that Her Majesty The Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Christine Hardman BSc(Econ), M.Th, formerly Archdeacon of Lewisham and Greenwich and now Honorary Assistant Priest in the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie Southwark, for election as Bishop of Newcastle in succession to the Right Reverend Martin Wharton, BA, on his resignation on 30th November 2014. 

She says,

I don’t really have the words to express my excitement at coming to this vibrant, warm and proud part of the world.” 

From my own faith journey I know the key significance of warm, lively, welcoming church communities with worship that transforms us and sends us out into the world - bringing the depth of Christian hope to places where hope is thin on the ground. 

God cares about the world - not just about the Church. The rule of Christ is over the whole of our lives. That’s why it’s so important for Christians to engage and work with key partners for all that leads to the flourishing of communities. As Bishop of Newcastle I will take every opportunity to engage in the public square and especially to speak on behalf of those whose voices are not heard, 

It will be such a privilege to be your Bishop and to lead you on the next stage of the journey. In all of this I will be relying on God’s grace and your prayers.

The Right Reverend Frank White, Assistant Bishop of Newcastle, said, 

This is such a good moment to welcome Christine Hardman to be our new Bishop and I look forward with eager anticipation to serving alongside her. 

Her wide interests and experience and her desire to encounter and learn from the spirituality of this region offer us all real opportunities for growth. 

Christine's gift for the intelligent engagement of the good news of Jesus Christ with the challenges of our times dovetails wonderfully with the vision of this diocese.

Her CV 

The Venerable Christine Elizabeth Hardman, aged 64, holds a B.Sc (Econ) from the University of London and trained for ordination on the St Albans Ministerial Training Scheme. 

She later studied for a Master’s degree in Applied Theology from Westminster College, Oxford. 

She became a Deaconess in 1984 and was ordained Deacon in 1987, serving as Curate at St John the Baptist, Markyate Street in the Diocese of St Albans. 

She took up the role of Tutor and Course Director on the St Albans Ministerial Training Scheme from 1988-1996. During this period the Scheme merged with the Oxford Ministry Course and she became its Director of Mission Studies. 

Christine was ordained Priest in 1994 and became Vicar of Holy Trinity and Christ the King, Stevenage in 1996 and also Rural Dean of Stevenage in 1999. She served as Archdeacon of Lewisham and Greenwich from 2001 to 2012. 

In 2012 Christine became Assistant Priest at Southwark Cathedral and received the Bishop’s Permission to Officiate in the Diocese of St Albans where she has been acting Warden of Readers. She has a special interest in mission studies and the social implications of the Gospel. 

Christine has been a member of the General Synod since 1998, with one brief break, when she moved from St Albans to Southwark Diocese, and has served on many different committees including the Synod's Eucharistic Prayers Revision Committee, the Dioceses and Pastoral Measures Review Group and the Ethical Investment Advisory Group. Her major area of work on General Synod was the legislation to allow women to be bishops. 

She was Prolocutor of the Province of Canterbury in the last Synod 2010-2015 (which came to an end with the July session) and served on the Archbishop’s Council. 

She is married to Roger and they have two daughters and four grandchildren.
Immediately after graduation Christine worked as an articled clerk and with an estate agency. Her interests include making connections between the worlds of economics and Christian faith, being in the mountains, cycling (especially bike tours in other countries and cultures), theatre and cinema. For many years she enjoyed running, completing the London Marathon three times and the Newcastle-based Great North Run.
Dates have yet to be announced for her Consecration as a bishop and the inauguration of her ministry in the Diocese of Newcastle.

She has her own Wiki page

Creeds and reconciliation

Justin Welby tweeted:

It's Written on Your Face

Jeannette Sirois for

 the City of Vancouver, 2014

Genuine reconciliation is not only about agreement, but about how we love one another in deep disagreement. @JustinWelby

Which is undoubtedly true and which also raises certain challenges - even accusations - for Christians.

History relates that Christians have been appalling bad at showing compassion to other Christians - never mind to those outside their own walls.

In fact - for all the committed Christians and Christian groups committed to reconciliation - I think there are structural aspects of Christianity which make it very difficult to find ways to "love one another in deep [or any other] disagreement."

Specifically the credal character of Christianity - self-definition and self-authentification by statements of belief - is in practice a mechanism for building walls and making enemies.

Creeds, even fragments of creeds, become the tests by which Christians tell themselves who's in their camp (and thus righteous, blessed, and Godly) and who is not (and so is polluted, accursed, ungodly). Creeds simultaneously bind together and alienate. A credal culture mediates this public structure into individual Christian attitudes and behaviour.

Locally too, the presupposition that members of a particular church community agree with one another is very powerful. It can be very hard for people to express spiritual and theological doubt, never mind dissent. Those who speak off-key find they cannot be heard. They are out of tune and they must leave the choir. The desire for harmony can make people wilfully deaf to other tunes. Faithful searchers and questioners may (wittingly and unwittingly) be edged out the door.

It's Written on Your Face

Jeannette Sirois for

 the City of Vancouver, 2014

Political parties, by contrast, begin with the presupposition of internal disagreement. Therefore their structures are designed to accommodate difference and disagreement. There are mechanisms by which differing internal groups seek to persuade the majority of their views. In practice multiple minorities are able to co-exist, collaborate and contend in ways which may contribute to the vitality of the party as a whole. Sometimes they break too, but on the whole public disagreement is evidence of strength.

But churches set on a foundation of presumed agreement, have all too often become rigid, breakable, friable. An inability to listen and unwillingness to accept difference all too easily result in individuals leaving unnoticed and conflicts escalating rapidly into division. Christian truth is conceived as credal statements which demand assent. Expressions of faith in ambiguity and ambivalence, fluid spirituality, historical flow - not to mention a divine refusal to be locked into small verbal boxes - are all threats to the established order.

And yet as Christians we preach reconciliation. We have largely been unable to reconcile older churches to one another and new Christian denominations proliferate like weeds. But we all think we can tell other people to love one another.

SHOUTING IN CHURCH

I can't recall having been shouted at in church. I guess it's happened on occasions, but not for a long time. I've certainly done things on occasions which have left people angry with me.

I did one (relatively brief) job where I was expecting a blazing row every time I entered the building. Although the row never came the expectation of it made worshipping difficult.

But it seems that being shouted at is not uncommon in the life of the clergy.  In a survey of 200 clergy

When asked about church members being rude, aggressive or passive aggressive to them, 76% reported that this was a regular occurrence, with church members shouting at them on average, once a week. Some church leaders however, said that they were shouted at or spoken to aggressively as many as 30 times a month, with one respondent sorrowfully reporting that it happened ‘on a daily basis.’

Shouting in this context is an act of violence just below the physical. It can be felt as a blow, an assault. It's often born of frustration but it can equally be part of a pattern of bullying behaviour.

It's also, for the most part, an expression of violence for those who want to remain within the community. Perhaps they are frustrated in not getting their own way, or they shout to sustain their control over events, or they hate they way things are changing out of their control. But they don't want to leave.

Yet at the same time such people (even when they're not shouting) destroy the quality of the community they're part of. Trust and security are lost. And it's incredibly hard to turn such a situation around into a safe, nourishing and pleasant community.

No, but might benefit
from a haircut

On a couple of occasions in my career people have left the church following a row and the remainder of the church have been able to relax and breathe again and to build a better (if smaller) community. I recall a group of three in Sheffield who left after a dispute and went to the Cathedral. I told the story to one of the Canons who replied "Oh people are always falling out with their vicars and coming to the Cathedral. They don't stop being awkward buggers here - but they do all get together."

But if the experience of being shouted at regularly is as frequent as the survey suggests (and the post gives no details of sampling or methodology) then perhaps a more collective response is needed. 76% reporting regularly being shouted at cannot simply be down to the individuals concerned.

Nor does the brief report say whether men or women are equally the object of shouting or, as I would suspect, women are noticeably more likely to be shouted at.

It also suggests that prospects for church growth may be significantly hampered by poor, even self-destructive, relationships within too many local church communities.

(The brief report of the survey didn't say whether respondents had themselves shouted at other church members, or even whether they had been asked. But it would be unwise to assume that all fault is on the side of the laity.)

Knowing how others see us

A recent survey looking at the perceived trustworthiness of the police included clergy in the list of comparison groups. (Thanks to British Religion in Numbers.)

It turns out that, in general, clergy are deemed noticeably less trustworthy than nurses and doctors, or the police, but more so than lawyers and accountants.

And, thankfully, they are trusted more than tabloid journalists - the question there is why they are trusted by as many as 13% of people.

This survey should not be comfortable reading for clergy. First, I guess it contradicts the self-image of most clergy. Second it suggests clergy have real image problems with two important groups: younger adults and members of ethnic minorities.

Over two-thirds of younger adults find clergy untrustworthy or don't know. This suggests to me that there is a mountain to climb if the church wants to re-balance its age profile by attracting young people. (Or, alternatively, I suppose churches could work harder to strengthen their links with older people who are positively inclined to trust clergy.)

Summary:

% very/quite trustworthy	UK	London
Nurses	86	83
Doctors	85	84
Teachers	80	79
Armed forces	75	70
Judges	68	65
Police	65	60
Clergy	59	53
Accountants	56	55
Lawyers	52	47
Broadsheet journalists	25	36
Politicians	16	20
Tabloid journalists	13	16

Gender: In the more detailed survey results men and women trust clergy more or less equally but more men find them untrustworthy (30 % as opposed to 25% - the difference is that more women don't know).

Age: Older people trust clergy much more than younger people. In the 18-24 age group just 29% thought them trustworthy (as opposed to 72% of 75's and over). 37% of 18-24 year olds found them untrustworthy while 36% didn't know or weren't sure.

Regions: Geographic analysis shows intriguing differences. The North East and Wales have the highest proportion of people judging clergy to be trustworthy (64%), whilst the lowest figure (54%) is found between these two areas, in the North West, and in Northern Ireland.  (added later: Wales has the largest proportion of the population who reported 'no religion' in the 2011 census.)

Ethnicity: Amongst white people 62% thought clergy trustworthy and 26% untrustworthy. Among ethnic minority respondents 39% thought clergy trustworthy and 40% untrustworthy.

Reforrm and Renewal - the South African way

From the website of the Archbishop of South Africa, Thabo Makgoba:

In just over six weeks' time, representatives from all 28 dioceses, including experts in strategic planning, will hold two meetings, back-to-back, in which the Province will seize a Kairos moment to review our Vision and Mission as a church, to strategise around ways to implement our priorities, and then to make practical decisions on how to implement them in a manner that is productive, holistic and transformative.

Five years ago, the Province adopted a Vision and Mission Statement. In it we declared that the Anglican community in Southern Africa seeks to be:

• Anchored – in the love of Christ
• Committed – to God’s mission
• Transformed – by the Holy Spirit

Archbishop visits victims of Duduza tornado
4 October 2011 (Hope Africa gallery)

We added that across the diverse countries and cultures of our region, we seek:

• To honour God in worship that feeds and empowers us for faithful witness and service
• To embody and proclaim the message of God’s redemptive hope and healing for people and creation
• To grow communities of faith that form, inform, and transform those who follow Christ.

Within the context provided by that statement, we declared our Provincial priorities in the succeeding decade to be: 

• Renewal for transformative worship
• Theological education and formation
• Leadership development
• Health (HIV and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis)
• The environment
• Women and gender
• Protection and nurture of children and young people
• public advocacy

==========

To me the tone and substance might have significant and constructive lessons for the CofE, if we could hear.

1. To begin with God-orientated vision. Not fear of collapse.
2. A history of Kairos (remember the Kairos document of 1985?): embracing the possibility of transformation (wiki). As opposed to cautious and arthritic legislative reform and tinkering.
3. To look equally inwards and out: to see that the church is only whole when it is engaged in a transformative - and reflexive - manner with the injustices of the society in which we live.
4. And, as a united church, to be prepared to address public issues which are neither easy nor one-sided but where there is the possibility that the church could make a substantive and positive difference to people's live.

And, frankly, a sense of excitement. 

I don't doubt that in the cities and the deep countryside there will also be significant anxiety about what all this will mean for them. The view through the Archbishop's eyes is most unlikely to be the same view as a worshipper in a village outside Olifantshoek, say, or in the centre of Bloemfontein.

But we are buried under too much sediment: not only our history but also the weight of being the State church.